Damaged
by tigerkity
Summary: In December 1988, a young boy was being held in a warehouse. He went in even though he knew that his cover had been blown, he drew fire and was injured, yet managed to rescue the boy… his first citation. But at what cost?


Damaged

Spoilers: Eclipse, Mountie on a Bounty, Dead Guy Running

In December 1988, a young boy was being held in a warehouse. He went in even though he knew that his cover had been blown, he drew fire and was injured, yet managed to rescue the boy… his first citation. But at what cost?

_Author's Note: _For Liz. Happy early birthday!! Hope you enjoy!!

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"Nick! NO!" He screamed, but it was too late. His partner has been fifty feet away from him hiding behind a stack of crates, backing him up, but he hadn't seen one of the kidnappers flank him. The shot sounded loud, too loud, and droned out all the other fire in the warehouse. Ray could only watch as the blood spread across his best friend's shirt as he crumpled to the ground. Nick Tannor was his best friend and his partner. Together, they had taken down many Chicago crooks, and today wasn't supposed to be much different.

They had literally stumbled across a kidnapping plot when they were on their routine patrol. Their beat took them down Hayden Street and all the way until Jerome. They had just turned onto Jerome when Mrs. Pritchard, a kindly old woman who baked the best shortbread cookies, stopped them and told them about some oddities going on at the end of the block in one of the abandoned warehouses. It was by no means a good neighborhood, it was downright horrible, and Ray and Nick had taken to looking out for the old widow. They were just about to clock out of their shift, but had decided to go check it out anyway, if anything just to sooth Mrs. Pritchard's old nerves.

So they had driven to the area and got out for a look around. They were just about to leave when Nick heard something queer from one of the buildings. As senior officer, Nick had decided to check it out, instructing Ray to stay back. He had returned not five minutes later, at a jog, and quietly yelled for Ray to call in a 207 to the district HQ.

Ray's gut filled with dread. Kidnapping. They both knew that there was no time to wait, so they made the decision to head in. There were three captors watching one little boy. It should have been easy enough, especially since they had the advantage of surprise, but their target gave them away. The men's backs had been to them, all the better, but the boy, who couldn't have been a couple months over ten, had seen them first. The widening of his eyes in surprise was what tipped their hand. One of the men had noticed the boy's change in behaviour and spun around in time to see Nick and Ray duck for cover. His shout had alerted the others, and the gunfire started.

Ray had momentarily stopped firing, horrified at his partner's still body. He stared, willing Nick to get up, laugh, and shrug it off as being just a scratch or just a flesh wound. But it wouldn't happen.

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God DAMNIT Fraser!! The man was downright annoying! When would he realize that he was not superman! He should have waited for back up. They shouldn't have had to make that frickin' jump. Sheesh, the damn Mountie probably thought that he could fly and that everything would turn out all right. But it doesn't! Things don't always work out like that. Why couldn't he make Fraser see that?

He was just human. Ray was just human. Fraser kept expecting him to be able to keep up with him. Fraser was amazing, and Ray was just…well, not amazing. He was an underpaid conman with experimental hair pretending to be a flatfoot. He just followed him like a good partner and went along with his genius leaps of logic. It wasn't that he was dumb, he just wasn't as smart… as Fraser. But what he lacked in brains he made up for it in experience. He had been on the streets of Chicago for ten years now, day in and day out with the lowest of the low: dirt bags, scum balls, thieves, murderers, gang bangers, vandals, rapists, prostitutes. He knew how things worked, and they weren't always nice.

But then Fraser had come along, and he had gotten this…this…this optimist as a partner. He refused to see anything as bad, even when they were staring down the wrong end of a gun. And he admired that, really he did, but it was just so AGRAVATING! The Mountie refused to acknowledge that he had any faults and he put the bar too damn high. He expected way too much from him, and it was only a matter of time before he let him down.

God, he had promised himself that he would never do this again; he had gotten too close…attached. Ever since- no, he wouldn't go back there- God damn Fraser! _I'm not perfect, I'm not you, and none of us are superman. I just don't… I just don't want you to realize it when it's too late. I don't want to see you get hurt. _

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"So my little Tonto, what's on the agenda today?" Nick asked as he slid into the car, rubbing his hands together in front of the heater, desperately trying to warm up from his brief exposure to the bitter winter air.

"Hardy ha ha, laugh it up Nick. You have to spend the next six hours with me man, and I just had one of Rico's burritos for lunch," Ray replied with an evil smirk, glad to get one over on his buddy.

"Ouch. Okay, okay, I surrender, just keep the window down on your side," they both threw their heads back and laughed heartily.

Ray got his chuckles under control as he outlined their beat for the night. They still patrolled the same area, but they alternated starting points every so often. It wasn't a good idea to stick to a schedule and create an obvious pattern.

Almost at the end of their shift, and long after the darkness had settled, Nick said,

"Hey Ray, Linda is making her famous pot roast tonight, wanna join us? We'll share a few drinks, it'll be fun."

"Nah thanks. I think Stell has something in mind for us tonight, if you know what I mean," he grinned.

"Hot Damn, Ray, I forgot, it's your anniversary!"

"Yup," Ray nodded, "Seven years. I am the luckiest man alive," He said turning his smiling face toward his partner.

"Whoa Mr. Brighthappysunshine, I need some sunglasses over here," Nick teased. Ray's response was to just stick his tongue out at him. He still, after all the years, couldn't believe that Stella was still in love with him. But Stella was his and all was right with his world.

"Besides, I've got something great planned for tonight. It'll blow her away."

"Fine, fine, so not tonight then. How 'bout tomorrow? It's Saturday, Jenny's decided that she doesn't want to come back home for the weekend. I swear, they move off to college and suddenly, you're not good enough for them."

"Nick, Jenny figured that out long before she left."

"Shut up. Anyway, I thought that you might want to come over for a bit, you know, catch the game," he asked hopefully.

"Hmmmm… only if Linda promises to save some of that roast for me!"

"You bet!"

"Hey Nick, what is Mrs. Pritchard doing out by the side of the road?"

"I dunno bud, but I think we should stop and see," he said, already pulling the car up against the curb.

"Is it too much to hope that she has some cookies with her?"

Nick just turned towards Ray angled his face down and peered at him from the top of his eyes.

"Okay, okay! Fine, let's go check it out."

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This was getting to be too much. Pirates, buried treasure, ghost ships, superstitions, it was all _way_ too much. The adrenaline was coursing through his system after fighting off the sudden attack from the sailors. _Don't go looking for the Mackenzie_. It was a warning, of bad things to come, and Ray knew enough to know when to back off. The only problem was that Fraser didn't. He stuck with things like a dog to a bone, or is it with? It didn't matter.

He knew that Fraser wouldn't drop it, and that's what worried him. This whole situation was starting to turn… sour. And just now, Fraser had a gun pointed at his back. Ray hadn't known whether the man was going to fire or not, but he didn't wait to find out. He was only getting warmed up when the rest of the group took off.

Then Fraser just ignored it. He took an attack from a bunch of hoodlums as a good sign.

"I think we're on to something Ray," he said. _On to something?!_

"Oh yeah, like getting killed!" The energy was quickly finding an outlet as anger. This was going too far. Did Fraser not get it? What would it take for him to see when he got in too deep? His death?

He stormed off to the car, the need to get away was just too strong to ignore. He wanted to put his fist through another wall again, this time without the dead body. But something made him turn around. Something in him wanted to try one last time to get his friend, and soon to be ex-partner, to understand.

"Look, I may be damaged, Fraser, but I'm not stupid," he yelled angrily as began to turn back to the car. Then he said a little quieter, "... there's more to life than dying."

He surprised himself with that. He hadn't meant to reveal that much. Damn it! He didn't want Fraser to know that! He didn't want to appear any less in his eyes than he already did. It was hard enough to live up to his expectations as it was, and now he had admitted his biggest flaw.

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The bullets whizzing over his head, and the boy's terrified wails galvanized him back into action, bringing him out of shock. He ducked back behind the crate, and grabbed for his shoulder radio.

"This if Officer Kowalski on location, we've got a 10-108! A 10-108! I repeat, OFFICER DOWN! Requesting an ambulance!" He yelled into it. A shot hit the edge of the crate he was using as a shelter and splintered, forcing him to duck his head.

He peered through a hole in the crate and saw the man who had shot Nick coming closer. Ray frantically searched his belt for something to use. He grabbed his beater stick and made a decision, chucking it away, hard, over to his left.

It had the desired effect; as the baton clattered on the concrete floor, the man's head turned away, giving him his opening. Ray jumped up and brought his gun around, squeezing off a shot. He barely registered the man's body falling as he turned his sights on the next guy. One down two to go. He spotted his target not twenty feet from where his companion's body lay, and with another pull of the trigger, he joined him.

Ray ducked, figuring that he had gotten lucky enough. He checked the clip in his gun to see how many shots he had left, four, and rested his head back against the crate. He had a hard grip on his emotions, but he feared that the second this whole thing, the shooting, the ducking, the dodging, was over, he would lose it.

"Hey, COP!" he heard the last man call, "yo PIG!" Ray looked through the crack in the crate again and saw him walking towards the young boy. The poor thing had wet his pants with fright, Ray felt sorry for him. The man raised his gun and pointed it at the boy, and Ray no longer felt pity, he felt anger, at the man. He was going to shoot the kid.

"STOP IT RIGHT THERE, PUT THE GUN DOWN!" He yelled, but the man kept walking menacingly closer to the boy, who was silent now, tears running down his face. When it was evident that he wasn't going to stop, Ray stood up and took aim. So did the man. Four shots in total were fired, all found their mark.

The kidnapper's body crumpled to the ground, already dead from the three bullets that had pierced his heart. Ray felt an all encompassing pain in his head as he too had his legs go out from under him. He felt the hot blood flow down easily through his hair and down the side of his face, before the edges of his vision went dark. The blackness engulfed him quickly and he was gone before his head gave a sickening crunch as it hit the concrete.

He never heard the sirens as the ambulance and back up arrived, merely seconds after the kidnapper's bullet burrowed into his head.

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It had taken many nerve wrecking surgeries, months of recovery, and about a year of therapy to get out of the hospital and have the doctor sign off on the medical release for return to limited duty. He had been flying a desk for too long now, and Ray was ready to get back to real police work, really ready.

The doctors said that he was fine, physically, for his job, but he would never fully recover. The bullet had lodged itself into the very outer edge of the right side of his brain, bordering between the parietal and frontal lobes. Ray unconsciously ran a hand through his now thick and spiked hair that he had deliberately grown longer and styled it in the best way to hide the nasty scar that marred his scalp. He hated that scar and cringed when he remembered the days when he was bald. They had to shave his head for the surgeries, and every time he looked in the mirror, he saw the gross reminder of exactly what he had lost.

He had difficulty speaking: couldn't seem to find the words that he had once been able to spout off no problem. They were now stuck on the end of his tongue, and it frustrated him to no end. His accent had grown thicker, and he sometimes couldn't for the life of him remember which went on first, shoes or socks. That had eventually gone away, thank god, but his mood was all over the place, still was. One minute he'd be as happy as a robin, and the next, he'd have a mood swing bigger than any woman on PMS and become all depressed and grumpy.

He'd been in therapy, physical and mental, and had gotten back all use of his fine motor skills, which he and Stella had been extremely relieved about. But his life would truly never be the same again.

He now needed glasses. He got along alright during the day without them, but if he needed to _really_ see something, he needed them: to read anything, and more importantly, to shoot. That had bugged him a lot! He had been a crack shot before, an expert marksman with a rating that everyone else envied. The first time he got back on the range after getting shot, he had hit the target, but not his. He shot the target that was two lanes over from him. But, once he got used to the glasses, he got better. He worked almost nonstop until his rating was restored. But now he always had his glasses with him.

He and Stella had started growing apart. The hole in his head had caused a hole in their relationship. Stella worried constantly every day he went to work, though he hadn't quite begun patrolling the streets again, yet. And, the way that she dealt with that worry was to throw herself into her work; suddenly her career meant everything to her and Ray just couldn't do anything right by her. She began treating him differently, as if he were mentally retarded or something. But he wasn't, Ray was still just as smart and quick as ever, he just had a hard time getting it out. Ray had a bad feeling that things for them were changing, but he wasn't going to give up without a fight.

Ray sighed and threw his pen down angrily, then ran his hands down his face and tried to rub the headache away through his eyes. He tried to work on his breathing like the doctors told him to do, and counted to ten. He only had enough patience for four. He pulled open the drawer in his desk, cringing as all the pens inside it slid around, and grabbed one of the many plastic bottles. Checking to make sure it was the right one, he opened the lid and poured two pain pills into his hand. Tossing the bottle back into the mess, he closed the drawer again. He took a quick look around the bullpen to see if anyone was looking in his direction before he popped the pills into his mouth and washed them down with his sweetened coffee. Another odd thing he noticed: he had sudden cravings for sugar and couldn't get enough of it.

He tried breathing slowly again before picking the pen back up and returning to his paperwork. He had, since being chained to a desk, been working on studying for his detective exams. He only had time to get a couple more words written down before his captain walked by his desk.

"Kowalski, can I talk to you in my office?" Ray sighed.

"Sure thing Cap'n Bohlen," he answered as he followed the man back to his office. Jim Bohlen, Captain of the 23rd CPD Precinct waved for Ray to sit down as he closed the door.

"Now, Kowalski…Ray..." now Bohlen sighed, "You know… Nick was a great cop, damn fine. One of the best-"

_No._

"-and I daresay he was a good friend. We were all hurt when he died; it was a horrible loss-"

_No._

"-but it's been a while now," he said as he fingered a slip of paper on his desk, "and I have here in my hand your complete medical release and approval for full active duty. But, we have to settle the issue about assigning you a new partner-"

_No._

"-as you well know, we have some good rookies this year, they just need a guiding hand, you know, to teach them the ropes. And I figured this would be a good opportunity for you-"

"No," Ray said simply, no room for discussion. After Nick, he would never work with a partner again. It hurt too much. He wasn't ever going to put himself in that position again. He would never risk anyone like that again. He had vowed the moment he had woken up in the hospital that, if he ever recovered enough to be a cop again, he would work alone. No more partners.

"No?" Bohlen's eyebrows rose.

"Yeah, Cap'n. Look, sir, I've given it a lot of cons…conid…conde…damn!"

"Consideration?" the captain suggested with patience.

"Yeah, dat," Ray said embarrassedly, "I don't want anuder partner again-"

"Well Ray, I can't let you on the streets again without one. It's policy. I know how you feel, and I sympathize, but you need a partner."

"No I don't sir-"

"No?" Bohlen asked again.

"Cap'n, come on, it's hard enough for me to say!"

"Okay Ray, go on. I'll hear ya out," he conceded. Ray was a good man, and he knew it. He deserved for him to at least hear the man out.

"There's a way dat I can still do my job widout one. I've done my research. I can work as an undercover guy, a sort of inside man, anyone needs me, I can go in. I know dat not many people like undercover, but I can do it… without a partner."

Captain Bohlen was surprised. It was a good point. He knew that Thompson down in Vice was always trying to send people in to let in the sun on some of the nastier businesses in Chicago. The only problem was that they needed detectives, not regular beat cops.

Bohlen smiled grimly, that was easily emendable. Ray had been on the force long enough to fit the requirements, and he knew that for the last few months since coming back to work, he had his nose in the books, learning all there was to learn about the detective exams. If he put Ray's name into the running, he knew that there would be no objection from anyone. If anyone warranted it, Ray did.

He nodded his agreement.

"Okay Ray. That sounds good. I'll see what I can do." Ray didn't quite smile, but it came close enough that Bohlen felt that he did the right thing; he just hoped he wouldn't regret it later on.

"Thank you Cap'n," just as Ray opened the door to leave Bohlen stopped him.

"Ray, hurry up and get back to work. No more day dreaming, I need my 2-1-oh-3 form filed ASAP."

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He tore off his jacket and in frustration, now at himself, not Fraser, flung it onto the car hood before turning to sit on it. He crossed his arms, hugging himself, and hung his head. He couldn't let it happen again. This was why he was putting in for the transfer. He and Fraser had gotten too close. He didn't think of him as his friend, he was something beyond that. Closer, like brothers, but not, he already had a brother and they never spoke: something more. He couldn't describe it, but it felt like Fraser was his other half, better mind you, but together they were the best, a perfect duet. And that's why it hurt so much.

He was afraid. That's ultimately what it came down to. Ray Kowalski was afraid. Afraid that he might lose Fraser. So he was running. It was like that one Halloween when he was twelve years old. He had gone trick-or-treating with Stella that year and they had come upon and Old Man Tooley's house. Old Man Tooley was a hermit, he never went out of his house except to get the daily paper, he had his groceries delivered, and he didn't even have a car, well, at least not than anyone saw. Everyone on the block was afraid of him. They said that he was older than dirt and his basement was full of neighborhood cats and dogs and that he ate them for breakfast. Ray had lost Wrangler, his dog, two years earlier and he believed it. Stella had brought a bunch of her friends from school with her that night, but they were a whole year older than Ray.

When they were passing the house, the older guys had decided to test Ray. They dared him to go ring the doorbell of his house and ask Old Man Tooley himself for candy. He got as far as the doorbell, but when he heard the footsteps, he imagined a morning where Old Man Tooley had sat down for his daily bowl of Wrangler, then he fled as fast as his feet could take him. He had sprinted back down the path and as he passed the group, he had grabbed Stella's arm and tried to drag her away. He didn't get very far before she yelled at him, embarrassed, and he let go amidst the raucous laughter of the older boys. He had walked home that night, alone, without any candy, and had wanted to lie down in his bed and die.

But this wasn't like that.

He didn't want to die, and he sure as hell didn't want Fraser to die. So why would leaving him be better? He stopped, stunned. He couldn't answer that. He looked up briefly to glance at Fraser and saw him looking at him. Ray looked down again, breaking their gaze. He kept looking down as Fraser walked toward him.

Fraser would undoubtedly go after the criminals alone if Ray left, so how would he live with himself if Fraser got hurt… or worse? Whatever happened to him would be his fault and nothing short of a derelict of duty. He couldn't run every time he thought someone he cared for was in danger. That was the opposite of what he should be doing. He needed to support Fraser. Fraser needed him. All Ray needed was a good reason.

"…You give me a reason. You give me one reason why we should risk our skinny asses chasing the Robert Mackenzie…" he demanded flatly. Fraser launched into a long speech about the history of the Mackenzie and the downfall of its crew, its tragic end. And something in Ray clicked in place and solidified.

If Fraser wouldn't leave the Mackenzie and the pirates and the honor and pride crap alone, then he would have to stay and watch his back. After all, that's what partners are for.

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End

My first Due South fic. What do ya'll think?


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